Check-in At Mars? With Foursquare & NASA You Can!

Be nice to nerds? You should. Foursquare and NASA teamed-up, so you can now check-in at planet Mars to unlock your special badge of honor. And maybe you can even become the mayor of Mars.

If and when mankind will claim credit for the first landing on Mars? I have no freaking clue.

But I do know that you can now be one of the first human beings to check-in from space thanks to Foursquare and NASA.

How to unlock your Mars badge?
The Mars “rover” already unlocked the first Mars badge of honor. But if you don’t have the budget or time to fly to Mars yourself, don’t worry. Getting your Mars badge is pretty easy.

So Foursquare freaks buckle up and get ready. This is how you can create an out of this world experience.

You can simply get it, by liking NASA on Foursquare, and next check-in at a science museum, planetarium, or NASA visitor center. Start your journey to Mars here.

This is NASA’s second badge. And by this I mean the above official Mars Mayor badge.

The NASA Explorer badge first launched when Douglas Wheelock checked in from the International Space Station and then became available to “earthbound” users upon his return to the ground.

My Opinion?
Mashing-up with NASA is very clever from Foursquare. They must have watched Red Bull Stratos or Richard Branson’s Challenger?

Either way, it is helping Foursquare establish itself as the true check-in location service, while offering a fun way for users to interact with NASA’s Curiosity mission. And earning attention for its cute service.

Some think Foursquare will be stuck in the middle, or it might be crushed by Facebook’s new Nearby service. But being a Foursquare fan, I see the company steadily adding value to its platform. Also improving its UI and quality of maps.

Most recently, Foursquare added recommendations from Facebook friends. Recent rumors state that Foursquare could be Apple’s new partner to overcome Tim Cook’s mapping problems.

Basically, Foursquare is showing many other SoLoMo players the way, in many ways.

What About You?
How do you like this new Foursquare service? And who might be the first Mayor of the Red Planet? I’d love to read your ideas in the comments below.